Author: Nirvana Safaris

The history of Queen Elizabeth national park goes back as far as 1912, this is when the place was declared a restricted area after the outbreak of sleeping sickness. The locals that were living in the park by then doing agriculture and fishing were asked to move out and settle in the nearby areas. This created more land for wild animals because the area was depopulated. When the area become big enough for different wildlife to survive, the British government decided to evict the few remaining people to create game reserves. They destroyed their homes and even killed the park animals forcing them to move to neighboring areas like DR Congo, Kasese, Bushenyi, Rukunguri, and many others to seek refuge. In 1952, the large protected area was named Kazinga channel national park by the local people. The area has two game reserves one in the Ankole kingdom and the other in the toro kingdom and these were separated by the long water channel. In 1954, when Queen Elizabeth national park visited the places, two lakes Rutanzige and Katunguru found within the park were named after Queen Elizabeth’s father George, and uncle Edward The present day Queen Elizabeth national park started to be famous in 1954 after the visit of the British monarch to the park. From the visit of the Queen, the Kazinga channel was donated to connect Ankole to Toro kingdom and from there the two game reserves named lake George and lake Edward were merged to form Queen Elizabeth national park During the visit of Queen Elizabeth in 1954, she held a meeting at a now called Queen pavilion where she held a meeting with three traditional leaders from Ankole, Toro, and Bunyoro. From this meeting to remember her visit to the park, the government decided to change

Gates to Queen Elizabeth national park are those entry points to the park and exit points from the park. Queen Elizabeth national park is large protected area covering 1978sq.km and it can be accessed using different gates. There are four main gates of Queen Elizabeth national park found in different sections of the park. These are Kabatoro gate, Katunguru gate, cater gate, and Ishasha gate.   Queen Elizabeth national park is one of the oldest protected areas in Uganda having been gazetted in 1952 by the government of Uganda to protect a wide range of wildlife. The national park is the second largest protected area in the country covering 1978 sq. km of savannah grassland vegetation. Queen Elizabeth national park extends to Kasese, Rukungiri, Rubirizi, and Kamwenge districts and tourists have got a variety of gates to use to access the park depending on where they are going to sleep or visit.   Access to Queen Elizabeth national park gives tourists an opportunity to see the different attractions that are said to be in the park. These are 95 mammals, 10 primates, 600 bird species, and water bodies such as Kazinga channel. To see these attractions of Queen Elizabeth national park, you will have to be part of different activities among which include game drives, birding watching, nature walks, chimpanzee trekking, boat cruise, and community tours among others. Entering Queen Elizabeth national park gives tourists a chance to see park animals such as lions, giant forest hogs, sitatungas, warthogs, elephants, duikers, buffaloes, hippos, leopards, hyenas, Uganda kobs, bushbabies, crocodiles, red-tailed monkeys, vervet monkeys, black and while colobus monkeys, olive baboons, and much more during game drives, nature walks, and boat cruise activities. Chimpanzees are seen during chimpanzee trekking in Kyambura gorge. Tourists into Queen Elizabeth national park will also see